Page 227 - THE JUNGLE BOOK

The Jungle Book

‘I suppose we’ve inherited them from our mothers,’
said the troop horse. ‘It’s not worth quarreling about. Hi!
Two Tails, are you tied up?’
‘Yes,’ said Two Tails, with a laugh all up his trunk.

‘I’m picketed for the night. I’ve heard what you fellows
have been saying. But don’t be afraid. I’m not coming
over.’
The bullocks and the camel said, half aloud, ‘Afraid of
Two Tails—what nonsense!’ And the bullocks went on,
‘We are sorry that you heard, but it is true. Two Tails,
why are you afraid of the guns when they fire?’
‘Well,’ said Two Tails, rubbing one hind leg against the
other, exactly like a little boy saying a poem, ‘I don’t quite
know whether you’d understand.’
‘We don’t, but we have to pull the guns,’ said the
bullocks.
‘I know it, and I know you are a good deal braver than
you think you are. But it’s different with me. My battery
captain called me a Pachydermatous Anachronism the
other day.’
‘That’s another way of fighting, I suppose?’ said Billy,
who was recovering his spirits.
‘You don’t know what that means, of course, but I do.
It means betwixt and between, and that is just where I am.

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